big experiment
CERN's Large Hadron Collider (Wikipedia, CERN/LHC website) outside Geneva will begin operation tomorrow; at 27 miles in circumference, it is the largest and most complex experimental device ever built. Physicists hope to create a Higgs Boson, which is the only elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not yet been seen.
I don't claim to understand particle physics in any great detail, but what I do understand fascinates the hell out of me. Super-geeks (and parents of little geeklets) who want to show some love for the subatomic bestiary can head over the The Particle Zoo tomorrow for a special low price on the Higgs Boson plush toy:
Oh, and I wouldn't worry too much about the LHC destroying Earth by creating a microscopic black hole--TreeHugger has a visualization here--I trust the physicists inside CERN on the issue of safety much more than the crackpots outside.
< aside >
My spell-checker doesn't recognize either "hadron" or "hardon" (as in "Large Hardon Collider") as valid words...it's a good thing that I proofread this entry!
links:
"Crash Course" (New Yorker)
"At the Heart of All Matter" (National Geographic)
"LHC: The Guide" (CERN)
Comments
It would be tough to fit the collider into your bathroom, but visiting the LHC and running around the tunnel a few thousand times would probably produce the same effect.
;-)
I'm still waiting for those colliding hardons to produce some gay porn jokes...
Posted by: cognitivedissident
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September 10, 2008 12:24 PM
All I want is for the Large 'Hardon' Collider to reduce the pull of gravity right above the scale in my bathroom.
Posted by: leslie | September 10, 2008 11:45 AM